As Steve Benen did such a wonderful job of explaining in his post this Monday, Republicans continually claim to be the anti-tax party, but that label should come with an asterisk, because they really don't mind raising taxes on the poor. Those moochers had better get "some skin in the game" or else.

Case in point, one Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) who apparently decided that Mitt Romney didn't piss off quite enough Americans during the last election with his 47 percent remarks.

When Republicans endorse tax increases:

But as those who watch Republican politics closely know, the anti-tax rule needs an asterisk. The party hates tax increases with every fiber of its being, unless you're poor. Luke Johnson flagged this quote from Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.).

"You know, folks mock Mitt Romney for what he said, but he's right. Forty-seven percent of American citizens pay zero in income taxes. It's just true," Woodall said, according to remarks recorded by Georgia Fair Share. [...]

"In fact, the bottom 30% of American citizens profit from the tax code because they're getting refundable tax credits back," Woodall says in the video. "I don't care if you're paying a dollar. You need to believe that you are involved in the process, and you need to have skin in the game."

There are a couple of relevant angles to this. First, Romney's "47 percent" thesis wasn't just the percentage of Americans who don't pay income taxes; it was also about characterizing nearly half the country, including seniors and veterans, as lazy parasites.

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As Susie already noted here, Ed Schultz got the scoop and for the first time, interviewed Scott Prouty, the man who filmed Mitt Romney's now infamous "47 percent" video. And for anyone who did not catch it this Wednesday evening, I really recommend watching the entire hour he talked to Schultz.

I wanted to highlight a bit more of the beginning of the interview here: Revealed: The 'blue collar' bartender who secretly filmed Romney making infamous 47 percent remarks to wealthy donors:

The man who secretly filmed the infamous ’47 percent’ video of Mitt Romney has finally come forward and explained why he decided to wade into the presidential dogfight.

Scott Prouty publicly admitted that he was the bartender who released the footage of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a private fundraiser and he said that the motivating reason behind the move was so that all Americans could see the ‘true’ Romney.

‘Frankly, the people that were there that night, they paid $50,000 per person for a dinner. I grew up in a blue collar area of Boston,’ Mr Prouty said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz.

‘There's a lot of people who can’t afford to pay $50,000 for one night, for one dinner… I felt an obligation for all of the people who can't afford to be there.

‘I knew where he came from, he was born with all of the advantages- he was the son of a Governor, a CFO, went to prep school and Harvard- and I don’t think he has any clue what a regular American goes through on a daily basis. The day in, day out struggles of regular Americans --that guy has no idea and I don’t think he will ever have any idea,’ he said. [...]

His attention was piqued when Romney walked into the room and quickly began ordering staff members around. Even though his comments that the workers should speed up their service was likely in jest, that still rubbed Mr Prouty the wrong way.

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is calling on Republicans to court "the 47 percent who are dependant on government," a false statistic that may have been one of the reasons former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election.

Speaking to The Shark Tank's Javier Manjarres at the Cuba-Democracy PAC luncheon on Saturday, Cruz seemed to take the wrong lesson from secretly recorded video of Romney telling wealthy donors that he wasn't worry about the "47 percent who are with him [President Barack Obama], who are dependent upon government."

"I think the reason why Republicans did so poorly in this last election was actually not primarily immigration," Cruz explained in video posted on Sunday. "I think it was two words: 47 percent. And by that I don't mean that unfortunate comment. I think Mitt Romney is a good man and a decent man who ran a very hard campaign."

"What I mean is the narrative of the last election," he continued. "The 47 percent who are dependant on government, we don't have to worry about them."

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I've heard Lady-Mc-Cheney, Mary Matalin say a lot of ridiculous things in her defense of Mitt Romney, but this segment from Anderson Cooper's show on CNN this Thursday evening may have set a new low, even for Matalin's standards, which generally range from low to non-existent. Apparently labor unions, paying people minimum wage instead of slave wages and poverty programs that keep people from starving when times are tough are harming upward mobility in America.

And in this idiot's world, women being allowed to control their own reproductive health and having access to birth control is not one of the primary economic factors in most women's lives, but instead something that has no affect on whether they get "upward mobility opportunities" as well. Really astounding from someone who I assume was alive and cognizant during the last half a century or so and who has been around long enough to maybe remember the days when women were discriminated against because they might not be able to remain at a job, because heaven forbid they might end up pregnant.

Who needs misogynistic men around when you've got women like Matalin doing as much or more damage to her own gender as her male counterparts could ever hope to do.

As to the rest of the segment on CNN, I was glad to see The New York Times' Charles Blow call out Matalin for presuming to know what's best for African-American voters and the fact that you can't separate the issues she was discussing from the economic impact on the lives of average American workers, no matter what their race or gender.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Last month, Fox News was trying to pretend they weren't even aware of the leaked tapes of Mitt Romney talking about his disdain for the 47 percent when they aired his late night press conference where he was desperately attempting some damage control. This Thursday evening on Fox, Romney was allowed by Sean Hannity to just rewrite his whole response. He didn't really mean what he said at all now.

Romney On 47 Percent: ‘I Said Something That’s Just Completely Wrong’:

Mitt Romney's secretly taped comment about "47 percent" of Americans never made an appearance in last night's presidential debate. But on Sean Hannity's show on Fox tonight, Mitt Romney was asked what his response would have been had the debate moderator Jim Lehrer, or President Obama, confronted the candidate about the tape.

Here's his answer, portions of which likely would have been prepared ahead of the debate:

"Well, clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of question and answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right. In this case I said something that's just completely wrong. And I absolutely believe however that my life has shown that I care about the 100 percent and that has been demonstarted throughout my life. This whole campaign is about the 100 percent. When I become president it'll be about helping the 100 percent."

As they noted, that's not at all what he said during that press conference, when he simply said his words were "not elegantly stated" and "off the cuff." Romney's changed his position so many times and told so many lies, I'm wondering when or if he's going to finally start suffering some real political damage for it. Sadly, a lot of that is going to be up to the media and whether the outlets other than Fox, who is actively campaigning for him, are going to start calling him out.

In the mean time, since he didn't get a chance to try to sanitize his remarks during the debate, he ran to Sean's loving arms at Fox to have them "Hannitized" instead.

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I hate to break it to Paul Ryan, but Mitt Romney's comments to that audience where he didn't know he was being recorded and made his now infamous 47 percent remarks were not a "misstep" or merely "inarticulate." They were Mitt Romney saying what he actually believes. And the only reason you've got a problem with it now is because he got caught on tape doing it.

Here's the GOP vice presidential candidate on Fox News Sunday, calling it just that when asked about it by host Chris Wallace. And in regard to the poll numbers Wallace cites when he is prefacing his question to Ryan, I'd like to see what those numbers looked like if the question was something along the line of whether everyone should have their Social Security benefits taxed. I have a feeling they'd be getting some different percentages.

And speaking of polls, if Paul Ryan wants to call this a "misstep," well, it might be the "misstep" that ends up sinking his and Mitt Romney's campaign. Nate Silver has more on what those numbers are looking like since the release of that tape here -- Sept. 27: The Impact of the ‘47 Percent’.

WALLACE: Governor Romney has taken heat for the 47 percent video, where he told big -- big donors that 47 percent of the country -- it's actually 46% -- don't pay federal income taxes and view themselves as victims.

Fox News did a poll this week and they found that 79 percent think all Americans should pay at least some income taxes. Do you think it would be good if -- if every American paid federal income taxes, had -- even if it's a dollar, even if it's $2 -- had some skin in the game?

RYAN: We don't think that imposing new taxes on anybody is a good idea. Don't forget, Chris, the only person running for president who's proposing higher taxes is President Obama.

So our point is we don't want to...

WALLACE: Because he would end the Bush tax cuts for the -- for the wealthy.

RYAN: Yeah, tax rates -- he already passed all these ObamaCare taxes. About a dozen of them hit middle-income taxpayers, breaking that promise. He's proposing a massive tax increase on job creators in January.

But to go to your question, we don't think the idea or the solution is to impose new taxes on low-income people. We want to get people out of poverty, back to the middle class. And that's why our economic policies are designed to create jobs and opportunities so people can get higher take-home pay.

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Lawrence O'Donnell skewered Mitt Romney for his time writing love letters in the sand to Ann on the beach in France during the Vietnam war, and for being one of the few people out there to actually protest in favor of that war, while simultaneously getting draft deferments.

And he wrapped things up with Sen. Jim Webb who while introducing President Obama at a campaign event in Virginia, reminded Mitt Romney of just who that 47 percent he was talking about that fundraiser includes and what they're owed -- Webb to Romney: A ‘thanks’ would have been nice:

Introducing President Obama in Virginia Beach, retiring Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), condemned Mitt Romney for failing to mention veterans or the military in his GOP convention speech.

The omission was all the more damning, Webb suggested, because Romney is of an age where he might have served in Vietnam but did not.

“If nothing else, at least mention some word of thanks and respect when a presidential candidate who is their generational peer makes a speech,” said Webb, a former Navy secretary and decorated Marine who served in Vietnam. Romney was exempted from the draft, first as a student and then as a missionary.

“This was a time when every American male was eligible to be drafted. People made choices,” Webb said. “Those among us who stepped forward to face the harsh unknowns did so with the belief that their service would be honored.”

Webb also tied in Romney’s much criticized remark that 47 percent of Americans believe they are “victims” who feel entitled to federal handouts, saying some of those benefits go to veterans.

“Those young Marines that I led have grown older now. All gave some. Some gave all. That’s not a culture of dependency,” he said. ”They paid. Some with their lives, some with their wounds, disabilities. Some with emotional scars. Some with lost opportunities. Not only did they pay, they are owed. They are owed.”

In a desperate effort to recover from his disastrous 47 percent error, Mitt Romney has a new ad going up in the swing states promising that he really wants to be everybody's president.

It took the Democrats no time at all to demolish the ad. Masterful editing, guys. Just masterful.

Here's the text from the Romney ad:

“Too many Americans are struggling to find work in today’s economy. Too many of those that are working are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to make falling incomes meet rising prices for food and gas,” says Romney in the ad. “More Americans are living in poverty than when President Obama took office, and 15 million more are on food stamps.

“President Obama and I both care about poor and middle-class families; the difference is my policies will make things better for them,” Romney continues.

Be sure to pay attention to the graphic at the end, too.

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After opening up this segment with something I could have done without, which is carrying a bit of water for the Fox/Romney theme that President Obama is somehow not doing his job or spending enough time talking to world leaders because he didn't have any one on one meetings while the United Nations was in town and heaven forbid he spent a part of his day appearing on The View, therefore he should be losing this election, he manged to get some good jabs in on Mittens and the GOP clown show he ran against in the primaries.

After calling President Obama "the luckiest dude on the planet" because of the constant string of gaffs and flip flops from Mitt Romney on everything from saying Americans have adequate health care because of access to emergency rooms -- to his claiming he has an economic plan and then telling a group of wealthy fundraisers that electing him alone will satisfy that confidence fairy and magically revive the economy -- to his saying he shouldn't be elected president if he over paid his taxes-- to his double-talk on income redistribution -- Stewart reminded the viewers of just why President Obama is not losing this race given the terrible economy and turmoil across the Middle East and Africa.

Stewart wrapped things up by reminding viewers just how Romney managed to get the nomination to begin with, showing highlights from the Republican primary race. As Stewart noted, "That concludes our segment, Mitt Romney is the 2nd luckiest dude on the planet." I'd have a hard time disagreeing with that sentiment.

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Bay Buchanan, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign, on Sunday doubled down on the Republican presidential nominee's comment that 47 percent of Americans refused to take personal responsibility for their lives by asserting that the entire country was "a nation of people dependent on their government."

In video published by Mother Jones last week, Mitt Romney had told wealthy donors that 47 percent the country were "dependant" on government and were going to vote for President Barack Obama.

“My job is is not to worry about those people,” Romney declared. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

During a panel segment on NBC's Meet the Press, Democratic strategist Dee Dee Myers said that Romney's comments showed that he had a "very limited universe" and "really has no feel for what real people are doing."

"To characterize the personal life of Mitt Romney as Dee Dee has is to show that she does not know the man, she does not know what he has done," Buchanan shot back. "This is a man who has spent a life in serving others. That is the basis of what he believes."

"We are in perilous times in this country," she continued. "We are looking at financial ruin."

"We are a nation of people dependant on their government, and that is what Barack Obama gives us. And he promises more of that in four more years."

(h/t: Think Progress)